Perfect Kill

by Helen Fields

  ‘And the trachea?’ Ava turned to the pathologist.

  ‘There’s a substantial crushing injury,’ he said. ‘Almost certainly the cause of death, unless there were any other incidents occurring at the same time. Part of the trachea was almost flattened.’

  ‘Could that have happened postmortem, maybe trampling from the pigs?’ Ava asked.

  ‘No, this was very localised, specific pressure and damage in a small area, as if two thumbs had been pressed into the front of the trachea. Classic strangulation marks, and the internal bruising wouldn’t have shown if the injury had been postmortem,’ he explained. ‘We can’t be precise about age but the trachea is adult in scale, with little wear or fatty deposits. We’re assuming young female.’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Ava said. ‘If strangulation was the cause of death and the perpetrator was sufficiently careful about disposing of the body, it seems an awfully lucky coincidence that it was the trachea alone that survived.’

  ‘Actually there might be an explanation,’ Dr Chen said. ‘If the trachea was the most damaged part of the body, the pigs might have been attracted to that area first, from the smell. In the rush and the fight, it makes sense that it got pushed under the fence in the melee alongside the partially consumed clavicle. We got no DNA from that but indications are that it, too, was from a recently deceased female.’

  ‘Did all these women die at the same time?’ Ava asked.

  ‘Impossible to say precisely,’ the pathologist said. Dr Chen nodded her agreement. ‘The few soft tissue cells left inside the skulls weren’t sufficient for us to be clear about that. The trachea, though, showed no signs of long-term degradation, so we believe that was a relatively recent death, by which I mean the death had taken place no more than a week prior to the body part being found.’

  ‘So I have three dead women, different ages, not related, with potentially different causes of death, and none of them has an identifiable DNA match. You’d think if three women had gone off the grid at the same time, we’d have enough families complaining to the police that this would make sense.’

  ‘I would assume death at the same time, body disposal at the same time,’ Dr Chen said. ‘The skulls were similarly dirty and at sufficiently close stages of being consumed. The pigs did their work well but they’d have needed another twenty-four hours to have worked through the last parts of the skulls.’

  ‘Do we have any teeth yet?’ Ava asked.

  ‘Some, but not all,’ the pathologist said. ‘A couple of them have fillings, others have specific damage and wear. As soon as you have any idea of the victims’ identities, if they have up-to-date dental records, we’ll have a shot at confirming who they are.’

  ‘So I just need to figure out what links them,’ Ava said.

  ‘Pain,’ Dr Chen said, staring into the empty eye sockets of the most complete skull. ‘The woman who had two skull injuries – that’s unusual. Very few people experience two skull fractures in their lifetime. Those who do are either unlucky in the extreme or they’re living in circumstances where the statistical possibility of this type of skull fracture happening is markedly raised.’

  ‘Abusive relationships, drugs or prostitution then,’ Ava said.

  ‘Exactly,’ the pathologist said. ‘These women were regarded as disposable. The strangulation victim is the best example. I read an article recently that equated strangulation with waterboarding in terms of how torturous it is. It can be slow, drawn-out, stopped and started again, and it’s intimate. The murderer wanted to feel powerful, to be up close and personal with their victim. People who strangle want to look into their victim’s eyes while they do it. It’s rarely defensive.’

  ‘Which raises the question,’ Ava mused. ‘Are we looking for a single killer, or for several?’

  Chapter Twenty

  Callanach checked his stab-proof vest and made sure his gun had its safety engaged. He was less concerned about shooting himself accidentally than he was about the prospect of someone grabbing the gun from its holster. Saint-Denis wasn’t the no-go zone in Paris that the international press had made it out to be, but the police weren’t welcome there. Layers of mistrust had built up on both sides. Saint-Denis had been labelled as troubled courtesy of its high immigrant population, but that ignored the many peaceable hard-working people who lived there, and punished the many for harbouring the very few. Over time, an animosity had grown from the reputation, rendering the streets occasionally unsafe for no other reason than a lack of mutual respect and understanding.

  Two undercover police officers, one male, one female, stood in a doorway waiting for Jean-Paul and Callanach to appear from their unmarked police van. Both had been in close contact with Paris’ subcultures for years. Neither stepped forward out of the shadows to greet them. The woman had a scarf covering most of her face, and the man had his hood up. Callanach and Jean-Paul were dressed in tatty jeans and bulky jackets, their own hoods shielding their faces from recognition.

  ‘She’s Lebanese, Joseph’s Nigerian,’ Jean-Paul whispered. ‘They’ll get us where we need to go and translate, but any trouble and we’re on our own waiting for backup. They’re both too valuable to the intelligence services to be compromised.’

  ‘Understood,’ Callanach confirmed, as a door opened behind them and they wandered into a dark alleyway. A false roof had been constructed of tarpaulins, plates of corrugated iron and wooden planks strung on ropes from the windows above. Here and there buckets collected the invading rain water. It was light enough to make out where you were walking, but dim enough for privacy, and no helicopter or drone could see within. The overlooking windows offered no view. Callanach understood the desire for privacy. Paris’ migrant communities had been marginalised courtesy of the terrorist few, and were largely misunderstood and harshly judged. As a result, relations with the authorities were poor and no one side was entirely to blame.

  Doorways into the buildings at either side remained open, and from within the scents of incense and marijuana, coffee, mulled liquor, and every spice conceivable wafted out. Shouts came from distant rooms. Those sitting in the makeshift corridor whispered their conversations, growing silent and watchful as the team passed, heads down. Rounding a corner, they moved inside a building and into a large hallway. The heat produced by the multitude of bodies was stifling.

  They stuck close together, the undercover police flanking them front and back. The largest group surrounded a raucous cock-fight in one corner. Vendors called out, offering meat from sources best left unexplored, and trays of tiny packets containing different-coloured tablets adorned several tables, all well protected by men unconcerned about showing their guns.

  The Lebanese officer tugged Callanach’s sleeve, pulling him to one side and out through another doorway then up some decrepit steps that had no right still to be standing, Jean-Paul and Joseph following closely. Curious eyes watched them leave. Callanach forced himself not to turn back. Any sign of concern would only be met with even greater interest. At the top of the stairs they climbed in through an open window. A crimson-lit corridor ran in each direction. They took the left into an eerie quiet compared to the market hall below. A girl sobbed in one room as they passed. A thumping behind the next door conjured images of a man hitting the internal wall. The next door opened abruptly. A man stared out at them, bared his teeth and slammed the door again.

  ‘Here?’ Jean-Paul asked, as they paused outside another door.

  ‘Through this door, then another,’ the Lebanese officer said in French. ‘I’ll wait here. Joseph will go with you. Keep your hands on your guns and don’t trust her.’

  She turned her back as they went inside, sliding her right hand into her jacket pocket. Callanach saw the undertow of fear beneath the studied calm on her face. Inside the second room three men were laid out on the floor, a syringe hanging from one banded arm. Jean-Paul and Callanach covered their noses and mouths and stepped quietly to a smaller door with peeling grey-green paint. Beyond that, th
ey were met with a series of sheets hung like veils for three or four metres from ceiling to floor, the glow of golden light reaching through to guide them onwards. Joseph put a finger over his lips. They kept their footsteps soft. As they lifted the final sheet, a square, low-ceilinged room opened up and a woman spun around, a lime dripping, freshly cut in her right hand, a serrated knife glinting in her left.

  ‘What do you want?’ Madame Lebel demanded, pointing the knife in Joseph’s direction. Her French was fluent, the accent obscured by her native Somalian tongue.

  ‘Information,’ Joseph replied, peeling a wad of sweaty euros out from where they’d been tucked inside his shirt.

  ‘Dirty money,’ the woman hissed. ‘You come here with two white men, no appointment, pushing your filth at me. I know what you are.’

  She jabbed the knife into a wooden cutting board, throwing the lime onto the floor at Joseph’s feet. He edged backwards.

  ‘Take the money,’ Joseph said quietly. ‘Listen to their questions. If you help us, we’ll leave you alone.’

  The woman reached out her hand, slid her fingers into a fridge door and pulled it open. Callanach released the safety trigger from his gun. From the upper shelf of the fridge door, she pulled a chunk of pink meat, wrapped in thin wire. Holding it in front of her face, she untwisted a metal screw from the meat, running her tongue along the metal before spitting it towards Jean-Paul.

  ‘You want me to tell you the things I know?’ she laughed. ‘If I told you everything I’ve seen you would fall down dead right there.’

  Callanach frowned at the theatrics. They were costing them time, and this room had only one way in and one way out. No windows, no escape route. He’d been briefed on the woman’s history in the car. There was nothing to be gained by cajoling.

  ‘You perform operations on young girls at their parents’ request,’ he said. ‘You were prosecuted once before, but the child’s mother told the court it was another woman who’d performed the circumcision. She protected you because she was scared of you.’

  The woman grinned, showing sharp teeth. Callanach realised they’d been filed. The effect was chilling. It was hard to imagine a better way to ensure the silence of her clients. Her mouth was a brilliantly constructed nightmare. The rings on her fingers weren’t fake, though. Stuck in a stinking inner-city hell, she was earning serious money.

  ‘Are you scared of me?’ she asked him.

  ‘No,’ Callanach said. ‘The ox tongue in your hand is just protein. The screw you took out of it is just hardware. There are no spells. You convince people that there are, but you don’t believe any of it.’

  ‘I’m a healer. I don’t perform operations. It’s all lies.’ She ran a hand over her shaved hair, showing long nails painted bright white. The file had said she was forty-nine but she looked younger. Most people in Saint-Denis looked older than their years. She was thriving.

  ‘Either way, you’re selling a service,’ Callanach said. ‘So take our money. It’s as good as anyone else’s.’

  Joseph passed her half the bundle of notes. She walked to him, counting each note out slowly, taking her time. Callanach kept half an eye on her as he flicked his gaze across their surroundings. A thin mattress on the floor was home to stains he couldn’t bear to think about. A knife set laid out in a leather case sparkled in the candlelight. Bottles, jars, sprigs of leaves and feathers adorned endless shelves. If it weren’t for the stench of old bodily fluids that hung in the air, it could have been a film set. Of course, for all intents and purposes, that was what it was. Just an illusion.

  ‘Someone is selling human organs in Paris,’ he said. ‘We want to know who, why, and how we can find them.’

  ‘There’s certainly a market for it,’ she said, rolling the money into a ball and secreting it smoothly into her sleeve. ‘But human organs are hard to get hold of unless you live in a war zone.’

  ‘Who would want them?’ Jean-Paul asked.

  ‘A chef?’ She licked her lips.

  ‘Stop it,’ Callanach told her. ‘You’re peddling myths and hoodoo here. What use are human organs put to if they’re not transplanted?’

  ‘You’re thinking witchcraft,’ she grinned. ‘What makes you think I know anything about that?’

  ‘Are they used in curses?’ Callanach asked. ‘Or for sacrifices?’

  ‘Why is your imagination so dark? You came here assuming that everything I do is evil and for profit. I help people. Perhaps whoever is selling these organs is trying to help people, too.’

  ‘This is helping people?’ Jean-Paul asked, his eyes fixed on the bloody mattress. ‘Does anyone who comes in here survive?’

  ‘Don’t judge me. You think a fourteen-year-old girl from a strict Muslim family who finds herself pregnant can get an abortion without her parents signing the forms? Do you know what her father would do if he found out? I save lives.’

  ‘Female genital mutilation doesn’t save lives,’ Joseph said.

  ‘My knives are clean and I cut away as little as possible. My stitches are small. Ask the women whose grandmothers were given the task with kitchen knives if they’d rather their parents had come to me. Hypothetically speaking.’

  ‘Better it didn’t happen at all,’ Jean-Paul said.

  ‘It’s not my job to change minds,’ she said. ‘Perhaps if you did your jobs better …’

  ‘Have you heard of anyone offering organs for sale recently?’ Callanach asked.

  ‘Rumours,’ she said. ‘But I don’t help the police. In case you hadn’t noticed, you tried to have me locked up.’

  ‘We have information about your daughter,’ Jean-Paul said.

  Callanach stared at him. That nugget hadn’t been shared in the car. There was a long pause.

  ‘My daughter is fine. She lives in the next block. You people will say anything.’

  ‘Not that one,’ Jean-Paul continued. ‘You have another daughter, Elise, who disappeared. Only she turned up in Syria married to an ISIS commander. You’ve been trying to make contact with her for the last year. Did you really think intelligence services wouldn’t pick it up?’

  Madame Lebel dropped down onto an ancient couch.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said.

  ‘Information first.’ Callanach folded his arms. ‘What do the rumours say?’

  ‘That using the organs, you can be healed of literally anything. They offer a consultation and treatment. It’s expensive, and clever. All a scam, of course.’

  ‘Do you have a name?’ Jean-Paul asked.

  ‘Where’s my daughter?’

  ‘Still in Syria. She’s alive but has had to move around a lot with ISIS territory losses. She’s on her second husband. Her first was killed in a drone strike.’

  Madame Lebel wrapped her arms around herself and rocked backward and forwards.

  ‘I told her this would happen.’

  ‘What do you know about the person behind this?’ Callanach asked.

  ‘Nothing factual. Someone said it’s a woman, but it always is when it’s medical and there’s an element of mystery involved. Walk onto any city street and say the word “doctor” to a crowd and most will still immediately assume you’re talking about a man. Say “black magic” and everyone thinks witches and broomsticks. Some of the very sick people who come to me for help have heard about these amazing cures. They don’t want to believe it’s all lies. It should be stopped. It damages all our reputations.’

  Callanach bit back his desire to tell her what he thought of the services she offered and the lives they ruined. No amount of cultural differences could justify the mutilation of girls too young to defend themselves or make their own choices.

  ‘How do people get in touch with her?’ he asked.

  ‘You don’t. You make your condition – your needs – known to the right people and she contacts you. Will my daughter be allowed to return to France? Will she be arrested?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jean-Paul told her. ‘If it appears that she went willingly, if s
he conspired with a terrorist group, then it’s possible she’ll be refused re-entry into the country, or prosecuted if she does return. Technically she can’t be left stateless, but she would have to agree to go into a deradicalisation programme at the very least.’

  ‘Has she been hurt? Did they treat her well? I’ve heard nothing. Others have told me she’s not allowed to communicate with anyone outside.’ There were tears now. Callanach steeled himself against them. Madame Lebel was profiting from others’ barbaric beliefs. She had no moral compass. It was easy to see how her daughter was repeating those mistakes.

  ‘Our information is that she’s had a child. You’re a grandmother,’ Jean-Paul said quietly. ‘I have a photograph, but you need to put us in contact with the right people.’

  ‘If anyone thinks I helped the police, my throat will be slit while I sleep.’

  ‘So be careful,’ Callanach said.

  ‘Fuck you,’ she offered in response.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ Joseph said.

  Jean-Paul took a photo from his pocket, keeping its blank face to Madame Lebel. She fixed her eyes on it.

  ‘There’s a clinic on Villa Curial. It’s a support centre for people suffering from life-threatening illnesses. They offer counselling, non-medical therapies, assistance with getting benefits or dealing with employers, that sort of thing. Whoever is offering these so-called treatments has contacts inside that clinic and others. They figure out who might be a good client and make an offer. That’s all I know. Now give me the photograph and the rest of the money.’